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Completely surpassing expectations, Wake Forest has brought in its largest student population in school history.

The bar was already set high for the 2018-19 academic year as the school was allotted 2100 students to start.

Principal Patti Hamler references diverse demographics in regards to the current school population.

As of Oct. 2, the school upholds a population of 2335. With Heritage High School being capped at its max population, administration has seen a number of students shifted to Wake Forest.

With such a large number in mind, the school has seen an addition of one new counselor and a 50 percent media coordinator. The school has also gained four new teachers, one being a Health and Physical Education teacher.

Though some problems have been solved by Hamler and the other administrators, other challenges have arose in the mix.

“I think initially it was just settling in and trying to decide where we need different things, where we needed more people on duty, if we had enough food in the cafeteria to service. Of course the traffic, the construction of Stadium Drive, has been a challenge with the numbers because that means you have more parents dropping off kids in the morning and picking up kids in the afternoon, and the busses are parked in a different location now, so that was a whole different setup,” Hamler said. “Another challenge that the students have had to deal with is the traffic. If you need to leave to go to lunch and come back, there’s a whole new route you have to take to park your car.”

According to Hamler, the challenges presented to her and her staff have already been taken care of, and things are running smoothly overall.

Hamler said, “We’ve already adjusted. We’ve already adjusted lunch shifts; teachers that were on one lunch shift were moved to another lunch shift. We’ve adjusted carpool in the afternoons, we’ve adjusted the way people enter and exit, we’ve changed the routes people have to take in the afternoon, the bus lineup, we changed the time they can line up in the afternoon. We’ve also changed the time the busses are to leave in the afternoon. We even added a new teacher and took kids out of classes that were too crowded and put them into classes that weren’t as large.”